


For the Time Being

by musamihi



Category: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Canon Era, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-20
Updated: 2013-12-20
Packaged: 2018-01-05 06:17:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1090615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musamihi/pseuds/musamihi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Enjolras and Combeferre travel to one of Enjolras' family properties to complete an arms deal, and brush up against the temptations of the past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For the Time Being

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tantamoq](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tantamoq/gifts).



They arrived at the hunting lodge – a few miles out of Chantilly – in the late afternoon. Enjolras, with all the familiarity of someone who has known a place since childhood, started at once down a path that lead around the back corner of the square, sullen house. Minutes later he returned with a youth who led the trap and horses away, and whom Combeferre did not see again; and then, once more alone, he and Enjolras contrived together to toss a red cloth tied to an old bridle up into the branches of the spreading elm nearest the road. It made a dismal sight, cracked leather and discolored metal hanging from that drab, gangling tree still lying dormant in this unseasonably cold March – but for a signal, it sufficed. _Here we are_. 

Standing in the tattered shade, Enjolras drew out his watch. Twenty minutes couldn't possibly have passed since the last time he'd done so; and their rendezvous was set for the middle of the night. Combeferre said nothing, resisting his own urge to will the clock along, just as eager for nightfall.

"I hardly thought to arrive this early," Enjolras said, raising his eyes from the face of his watch to the road's blind curve.

For his part, Combeferre, as much as he was anticipating getting to the crux of their business, was pleased enough to have a momentary lull. Riding for the better part of a day at Enjolras' preferred speed had left him a little chilled, a little wind-sore. "We were lucky. No obstacles."

"We have quite some time to wait."

"There are worse places. Inside, perhaps?" It would have been a lie to say he hadn't been looking forward quite vividly to a place out of the wind.

Enjolras nodded, turned, and led them back along the drive. The surrounding woods felt empty, Combeferre found, oddly silent for this time of year – but there was an air of closeness to everything, even approaching claustrophobia. The house itself was of that very old, nearly windowless style more reminiscent of a fortress than a place of pleasure; brooding behind an incongruously cheerful garden, it seemed to turn in on itself, all moss- and water-stains and hard, graceless edges. He doubted it would be very much warmer within, but it was shelter.

They didn't make it there, in any case. Enjolras stopped on the red stones steps leading up to the door, and, putting his back to the house, gazed over the garden, his arms crossed over his chest against the cold. After a moment or two he sat. To anyone else he might have been inscrutable. 

Combeferre read a strange disquiet in him, however, and sat not far away. The stone was warm. The sun was full on his face. The garden – low, neat hedges, a simple fountain, and a brave assortment of flowering weeds pushing up around the stepping-stones – was calming, if not particularly impressive. But Enjolras was stiff, almost awkward - there was something fidgety in all of his motions, which, though they were few and far between, felt clumsy, repressed.

"There's no cause to be impatient," Combeferre said, tipping his hand against his brow to shield his eyes from the sun. He peered across at Enjolras. The uneasiness perplexed him – and pained him a little, if he was being perfectly honest, although there were no real grounds for hurt. But one of them men they were waiting for was his particular friend – a friend since infancy, almost, and whom he hadn't met again since he had left for Paris – and his own heartfelt enthusiasm was running aground a little hard on Enjolras' reserve, which he read as doubt, or at least as an abundance of caution. "They'll come when said they would."

"I'm not impatient." His voice was cold and flat – a tone to which Combeferre was well accustomed, and which did indeed signify impatience. But it slackened a little when Enjolras rested his chin in his hand, his shoulders loosening just perceptibly. "Only anxious – eager, I mean."

"They'll bring what they –"

"To get back to Paris."

Combeferre fell silent until the sun fell halfway behind the shabby treeline. It didn't take long; it seemed to set steeply, and as the shadows crept up the garden path he tucked his elbows close against his sides for warmth. He'd been eager for months, seeing his regular letters with the friend he'd left behind develop an ever more distinct political flavor. When at last they'd grown sure enough of one another (strange thing to say after almost thirty years of acquaintance) to bare certain secrets, this fortuitous arrangement had been made. Paris was stirring – Paris would soon require more arms than she had – and there were men who were more than willing to supply, in the hopes of seeing progress spread as quickly as possible. This was a practical errand, of course, more than anything else. But having so looked forward to it all along the jostling road from Paris, he was not at all ready to start looking fondly back in that direction. He resisted all thought of it. He watched the growing shadows push through the garden, watched the clouds fading from orange to red to grey - watched anything at all that wasn't Enjolras' restless forward gaze.

So there they both sat, ears open for the distant sound of hooves and wheels not scheduled to arrive for hours yet, waiting for the same thing and yet not the same.

Enjolras shifted, slipping his hands between his knees and chafing them slowly. "It's only that there's so little time – things are moving quickly. I don't like to spend it so far away."

"No. No – of course." That Enjolras had noticed his dissatisfaction enough to address it at all started a thread of remorse in Combeferre – because it was foolish to worry, no matter the reason. Tonight should have been auspicious in every way. An old friend bearing succor for a new world – what could be a better cause for celebration? He smiled. "Time won't pass you by; not here." All was decidedly still. "This is real time, you know – natural time. The time to which we'll all return, when we're finished marching forward like clockwork. It doesn't run out."

Enjolras' expression was open, mild – entirely too forbearing to be completely sincere. Combeferre recognized that he was being humored. He'd long since realized that it was less a lack of interest or respect – never that – than a form of patience, a momentary tolerance for something that Enjolras knew would not be immediately practical. "Natural time. Time is time – here and everywhere else." He touched his side where his watch lay somewhere beneath his coat. 

"I think not. Time in the city is purposeful – burdened. Here it only turns under its own weight, and with no direction; there are no straight lines to travel. But perhaps you're right," Combeferre added, sensing (Enjolras' posture had always been remarkably eloquent) that his audience was fast losing sympathy with him. "Anywhere men are, their time follows. We've both brought timepieces."

"And both have business to attend to elsewhere."

"Only for so long." Combeferre rested his hand on the stone between them. It was still rather hot; his palm leached the warmth out slowly. "That line has an end."

Enjolras shrugged the observation away as though chasing off a fly. 

As the stars began to appear, the wind rose. Soon the silence bloomed with the soft sounds of bare branches rustling together, and in the moonlight it was just possible to see the dim tail of red turning in the breeze.

And then it was simply cold. Combeferre, unsure why Enjolras was so intent on staying out of doors but resigned not to ask if the answer wasn't being offered, stared directly upward at the stark line between the black roof and the darkening sky. "When the time _has_ past," he said, "what will you do? Perhaps you haven't considered it."

"It won't pass in my lifetime. There will be more to win for years – decades, more than likely. And then, vigilance."

"Of course. But every man passes his point of usefulness – when you retire, in your accomplished old age –"

"I don't see how I possibly could."

"Hypothetically." Combeferre turned slightly to smile at him, and was not surprised to find Enjolras looking steadfastly toward the gap in the trees that revealed a few feet of road. "In your return to natural time - when you have no choice but to get out of the way of younger men - what would please you best?"

It was not a question tailored to Enjolras' personal strengths; the minute and a half that passed in thought was relatively short, all things considered.

"I think," Enjolras said, deliberately and yet with a trace of impatience, as though the subject matter were hardly worth the effort, "that I should return here. Here, or somewhere like it – when there's nothing left to do."

"A country retreat – you surprise me. I wonder that you'd be able to tolerate it for very long."

"If I'm of no use to anyone, I doubt if I'd find it unpleasant. A man must know his worth – whatever's his best use, there should he go. You'd do the same, I suppose."

"Oh, I think not. Nature's one thing," Combeferre said, pulling in a deep, biting breath, "but the country's another, I'm afraid." The metallic taste of the lingering winter tightened his throat; he coughed, and blew into his hands.

Enjolras straightened as though jolted out of something – and clasped his hands together more tightly for a moment before standing, looking abashed in his rigid sort of way. "We might as well go inside." Without further hesitation, he turned the key in the lock and pulled open the door.

\- - -

Inside, the house was surprisingly agreeable – warm and well-lit, although smaller than the exterior might have suggested. A platter of bread and cheese and an open bottle of wine had been set out somewhat haphazardly on a writing desk in a room with a hard sofa, a pair of chairs, and fireplace far too massive for the space; they took the sofa, and Combeferre helped himself to supper. He hadn't seen the boy again, but clearly he kept the place well. Surely they weren't the only visitors he'd had recently.

"That young man – the caretaker?"

"Yes. Since his brother married." Enjolras had found a blanket in a cabinet; it was draped across his knees. He looked comfortable – something Combeferre was fairly certain he had never seen before. Not simply relaxed, not just confident, but cozy. "I've known him for a very long time. And his family."

"Of course."

With every flare of the fire behind the broad stone hearth his eyes readjusted to the relative darkness that gathered in the corners. When a log collapsed, it illuminated and then obscured a crucifix nailed to the wall beneath the desk. Combeferre stared at it for a few more cycles of light and dark, not quite sure of what he'd seen – but Enjolras, more attentive here than in the garden, followed his gaze and nodded, worrying at a piece of bread with one hand.

"When I was very small, I liked it there – a private chapel, of a sort. It was silly - a child's whimsy, you know. Parents will sometimes indulge that sort of thing." He spoke easily, almost conversationally. Enjolras generally dealt with his past with the same ruthless practicality as any other topic of conversation; now he was nearly meandering.. "Until I was eight, perhaps – younger, I don't remember – I was quite set on the priesthood. It might have lasted even longer, if not for my mother."

"She dissuaded you?" The image might have been a touch too precious – the child hidden in the imagined safety of a piece of furniture, praying at his working father's knee – but there was a way in which Enjolras simply _fit_ here; as though it drew something out of him he normally suppressed without even thinking. 

"She was right to do so."

"Quite. Prayer ought not to be reserved for such a limited divinity."

Enjolras' face betrayed neither approval or otherwise – but he spread the blanket over Combeferre's legs, looking all the while into the fire. "Reason, truth, justice – that's the breadth we must aspire to."

Combeferre settled closer to him, happy for the warmth. His hands still felt icy against Enjolras'. "Still altogether too limited. And so new, so modern – there are older, grander things than reason. Men have only been beholden to reason for the blink of an eye. Reason is necessary, but not sufficient. Not to be prayed to."

"Sufficient for the time being."

"And when the time being has finished?"

They fell into their silence again. There wasn't much to say that wasn't better expressed by the press of a hand, and Combeferre took that duty upon himself. It had been a long, a hard winter, and although they'd found warmth in one another in the darker nights, pressed together under blankets as they spoke or read or simply hoped, such a warmth was incapable of fully satisfying either. This was the best thing there was, perhaps, in this time - but both looked for a different time to come. The present was sweet with its tranquil pulse and the gentle rise and fall of breath, but the future was the real prize, and all else would recede behind it. In an instant Combeferre's anticipation turned to a fleeting sadness - and, all excitement aside, he fell quite asleep.

\- - -

When he woke it was with the distinct impression that Enjolras was leaning against him; but when he opened his eyes he found him sitting upright, eyes resting on the idol beneath the desk.

There was a knock at the door, and Enjolras stood at once, the blanket slipping to the carpet and carrying with it half a plate of bread crusts. The boy poked his head in and disappeared once again.

Enjolras reached down to touch his shoulder, and, finding him awake, offered him his hand. "They've arrived – not very late, considering how far they've come."

But far too late for Combeferre, whose expectation as it burst pleasantly on him again at the sound of a familiar voice was tinged indelibly with a new melancholy. The voice was hushed and urgent, and slightly more rough than the sound he'd imagined behind all of those countless letters, but undeniably his old friend. In a moment they were embracing; and the scent of the past was on him, from years and from miles away, coming together in this lonely house with the fate they both meant to fight to bring about. It was a moment an unsubtle and skeptical mind might have called a coincidence; Combeferre refrained from calling it anything. Tonight he was growing increasingly convinced that there was no use for words. 

"You can stay the night," Enjolras said, after a cordial introduction. "And longer, if you need it. Better be out by Sunday, though, or you'll be noticed."

"Thank you. If there's room – we'll gladly take a bed for the night."

"More than enough." Enjolras drew out his watch. "We'll start back for Paris at once – as soon as we see to your cargo. You won't need to contend with us."

Combeferre did not protest. Of course it pained him, to lose something so sweet so quickly, but these were the auspices under which they had met. Progress. Revolution. The what-is-to-come. If he were to stay and mire himself in his favored recolelctions even for a few hours, what strength it would take to pull himself back up again – what unnecessary misery! He had never been given to despondency, or sloth, or any of those fine, warm vices that can suffocate a man without his knowing it. His feet belonged one in front of the other, his eyes on the horizon.

It took some doing, arranging the not inconsiderable racks of rifles into the false back of the horse trap; they only barely fit, and it was yet to be seen how the jolting of the journey would affect the stability of their efforts. But hours before the sun rose it was done, and, with one last fond kiss goodbye, he left his friend behind again – to see him in another ten years, perhaps. By then, who could say – time might have stopped hurtling forward with so much intent.

"I'm sorry," Enjolras said, as they turned out of sight of the house, passed under the red banner hanging heavy from that leafless tree, and clattered into the road, "that we couldn't stay."

"As am I." But the blanket he'd taken still had the smell of the place – fire, stone, and dust – and he wrapped it around both their shoulders for the ride home, for as long as it would last. Enjolras, handling the reins with slightly less than his usual reckelssness in deference to their delicate freight, said nothing else aside from gentle words for the horses along the road, urging them along as best he could.


End file.
